The o7 show was aired this evening at 2000 Eve time and there were some great announcements and some really interesting stuff on show in CCP’s flagship live dev blog. In the following article we will run through the main announcements that were featured.

UI Modernization: New Ship Icons

CCP Arrow was first on the stage, showing off the next stage in the UI modernization process. Each vessel in Eve Online will now have it’s own icon depending on it’s size, from a lowly shuttle or pod all the way up to the Titan. This is not limited to just combat ships either, industrial ships will be getting the same love. You can see a working example from the o7 show below.

This is something that has been asked of CCP for a while, people like Rixx Javix from Eveoganda have even made their own in the past and posted them as an example of what they would like to see.

CCP have gone even further than just doing this for player ships, the NPC ships will also be getting a rework as can be seen below.

So that the mission runners still feel that they are playing Eve Online, CCP Arrow has left little red crosses in the top right of each of the new NPC icons.

Now CCP could probably have stopped there and the player base would of been impressed, something that we have been asking about for a while now is finally at a stage that looks done, and CCP Arrow said on the show it is likely that the changes would be coming out in the patch after Fanfest, Scylla. However CCP Arrow wasn’t finished and moved onto the overview icons for drones.

CCP Arnar was next up, with a look at how next years Fanfest planning starts as soon as the previous one has finished. He said that this year at Fanfest there would be four lecture halls open and that there would also be 2 hallway sets for CCP twitch streaming and that a lot of work was going on to make sure that the best HD quality footage will make it onto our PC’s this March.

CCP Loki then spoke about the ‘roaming group’ of cameras who would be capturing spur of the moment interviews, shout-outs and other good things to give the people at home an idea of the atmosphere in Iceland over those 4 days. He also said that the roaming cameras would not be limited just to CCP headquarters and would accompany Eve players and devs on the pub crawls and other outside CCP events.

CCP also announced that there will be no charge for the full HD stream this year and that CCP are looking at other ways to give away free ships over the Fanfest period, most probably something to do with subscription payments.

CCP Legion confirmed that there would be 50 round table events, 30 CCP presentations and 3 keynote speeches over the 4 days of Fanfest this year. There will also be between 15 and 18 player hosted presentations over Fanfest. Submissions to be involved with those ends on Sunday 1st March at midnight. He said scheduling had been like playing with a ‘rubic cube’ trying to get everything to match up correctly.

CCP Legion also mentioned something called the ‘New Eden Connection’ and that further information on that would be coming soon and that it would focus on ‘expanding the experience’.

SOV Change Dev Blogs are coming!

CCP Mimic and Fozzie sat down to talk about the upcoming sovereignty changes. In a very guarded interview, CCP Fozzie seemed keen to talk about phase one of the plan to shake up null sec, which was of course Phoebe, rather than talk about any upcoming changes in ‘Phase Two’.

CCP Fozzie said during the interview that a lot of design work had been completed and that they had been working with the CSM to finalize the upcoming changes and also decide on a release date. There will be two dev blogs released at the beginning of next week, the first will look back at Phoebe and show what worked, what didn’t and what, if any, change they will make to the alterations which happened in Phoebe.

These dev blogs are going to be ‘rather substantial’ and the second of the two, which will detail Phase Two of the sov changes is going to be around 7400 words.

Looking back at Phoebe CCP Fozzie showed two graphs. The first (below) shows the null sec population, the black arrow is where Phoebe hit the Tranquility server and it shows a definite spike in active and subscribed residents in null sec.

However it has to be said that ‘This is Eve’ was also released at around the same time, so this could also be a contributing factor.

The second graph (below) shows the number of PVP kills for the same time period and the HUGE increase in PVP content which has been happening.

As CCP Fozzie admitted during the show, the most active area for PVP has been in the south of null sec, and we all know that this is because of the Catch thunder-dome environment and the huge influx of new pilots, thanks to the ‘This is Eve’ trailer. A lot of those new pilots, and some returning pilots, joined up with Brave Newbies who are great at getting fights and drawing in others to fight against them.

CCP Fozzie said the upcoming plans for phase two should shake up the rest of null sec as well and we should start to see a lot more fighting in other areas of New Eden. Fanfest is coming, changes will happen.

CCP Rise swings the Nerf Bat!

We all know by now that the Tengu was going to get a nerf, we talked about it on the Warp To Zero forums and also yesterday in the article. However it seems the nerf bat kept swinging and struck the other Tech 3 strategic cruiser as well. All of them will be receiving balance changes in the next patch, although at the moment it will only be to the defensive subsystems.

The biggest changes here are to the hit-point bonuses subsystems, Supplemental Screening and Augmented Plating. These subsystems are by far the most powerful defensive subsystems for PVP use, and their strength is a significant part of why T3 cruisers often eclipse other competing ships (such as HACs and Command Ships) and why the Loki struggles in comparison to the other three.
We’re reducing the strength of the bonuses on these specific subsystems, to +7.5% Armor HP per level for Augmented Plating and a combo of +5% Shield HP and +3% Shield Recharge Rate for the Supplemental Screening.
The other changes in this pass are all more minor tweaks to HP and signature values to help balance out the viability of the different subsystems relative to each other.

Like I said, these are not the final changes we want to make to T3 Cruisers, they are one specific set of changes we are making to help improve the balance surrounding this class until we can finish the comprehensive pass down the road.

There are a number of balance issues that are being looked at surrounding Sentry Drones and the ships that use them, and more info on that will be revealed later. However one smaller tweak that I can announce now is that we are shifting some of the base optimal range on Bouncer sentry drones over to falloff.

The change removes 5km of base optimal for T1 Bouncers (6km for T2 and Navy) and adds the same value to falloff.

CCP Fozzie then took another swipe with the nerf bat and admitted that the recent balance pass on rail-guns may have gone slightly awry and that they will be reducing the damage output from rail-guns in the next patch, no figures were announced during the show so watch out for the upcoming dev blog. This change will affect a lot of ships, including the Tengu, Moa, Eagle and the Proteus.

CCP Fozzie then limbered up with the nerf bat to hit one right out of the park… Carriers and Super-capitals will no longer be able to assign fighters to assist small fast ships.

CCP will be removing the ability to assign fighters from the game entirely and will also be removing the fighters/fighter bombers ability to warp. This will directly counter a old but recently publicized tactic called ‘skynet’ where a Carrier or super sits just outside it’s POS force field and assigns it’s fighters to smaller faster ships like interceptors or even shuttles.

CCP really didn’t like this tactic, so it’s gone.

At this point it seemed the show was wrapping up, and a lot of people were surprised about the lack of mention towards the Ishtar… then CCP Fozzie said there was one more thing…

ISHTAR NERF.

CCP Fozzie admitted that the sentry projection and tracking bonuses that the Ishtar gets were really powerful, infact it was so powerful that CCP did do some tweaks on it a while ago. However, even with those changes the Ishtar has done more damage to other players in EvE than any other ship over the last year or so. CCP Fozzie showed this graph;

To explain this graph, the red one at the beginning of the graph is the damage done to other players by the Hurricane, when that was in it’s heyday. The yellow line at the right of the graph which climbs into present day is the damage done to other players by the Ishtar. As you can see the Ishtar has done more damage over a longer period of time than the Hurricane, which was nerfed into the ground (as you can see by this chart)

I believe the green line, which is the second highest in the present day to the right of the graph, is the Tengu. This being the case it shows that the Ishtar is WELL ahead of the go-to Tech 3 Strategic Cruiser doctrine and is doing OBSCENE amounts of damage in Eve.

The change that CCP Fozzie announced was the Sentry Drone damage bonus will be reduced from a 10% damage increase per Heavy Assault Cruiser skill level to just 5%. There will be no change to the tracking, optimal range or hit point bonuses yet.

Will this be enough to please those who have been calling for a nerf to the Ishtar? We will have to wait and see.

A dev blog detailing all the upcoming re-balancing should be released either tomorrow or Monday 2nd March 2015.

The other stuff

An interview with an excellent content provider, YouTube video maker and CSMX candidate WingspanTT. He puts weeks into recording his videos then spends hours editing them together to create a story which the viewer can follow. Go check them out now.

A new dev blog regarding the Drifters race will be released tomorrow. In just over 2 weeks the Drifters have destroyed well over 1000 capsuleers, so what next for this mysterious race? We shall have to wait and see!

It’s only 20 days till Fanfest 2015! The whole event will be live streamed for free in HD for those that couldn’t make it!

CSMX is breaking records with 75 candidates and over 13600 pilots have registered their votes so far! If you haven’t yet, then get to it! And don’t forget to vote for Bobmon, CEO of EN24!

Tau Ceti, a French alliance that has a lot of history, like fighting against the old BoB alliance back in 2007-2008, has been making a comeback as late and everyone is looking forward to seeing if they can make an impact on the alliance scene like they did back in the day. Talking about the french, there will be a Paris meet-up in march. More info can be found here.

Red Alliance, a large Russian based alliance, turned ten this year and they celebrated by meeting up, getting drunk and eating cake.

CCP gave them both the option of one of the tech 1 assault cruisers. Elise decided to take a Stabber while Progod took a Omen. They were then given just 2 minutes to fit the ships from a selection of T1 items.

Elise spent most of his trying to get his tank right, this meant at the 10 second countdown he had no weapons or mid slots. He did manage to get two guns onto the ship as well as a mwd but then forgot to load ammo. He did manage to grab some drones as he undocked, which were his only means of DPS.

Progodlegend managed to get 4 tachyon beam lasers onto his omen as well as a cap booster and mwd in the mid slots. In the lows he did get a plate and a damage control and even put in 2 heat sinks for better DPS. All in all the fight looked like it was going to go to Progod all along, he remembered ammo and had a semi working fit on his ship.

The fight went as expected, Progod took an early lead and stayed there. Elise not having ammo really hurt as his drones could not chew through Progods plate fast enough. The only hiccup that might of gone in Elises’ favor was when Progod capped himself out with his MWD and lasers.

However he still had his cap booster so was able to get his lasers firing again and took Elise down while still in low armor himself.

So the big hype about announcing sov changes at fanfest was a lie….and why change the ship icons…in guess if its not broken fix it till it is (stolen from someone’s comment). Ccp needs to get on a ui for the visually impaired, i have an older gentlemen in my alliance that is forced to use a magnifying glass to read anythīng in eve.

Instead of wasting time on breaking our UI, why don’t you do something about high sec ganking?? Two -10 pirates in destroyers should not be able to gank a fkin freighter in high sec… 10 destroyers shouldn’t even be enough to gank one.

correct -5 or less should be blown up as soon as they undock / jump in system. but still it does not avoid that +5 pilots decide that they want to blow you up and do the same… And I agree that concord response time it not fast enough in 0.6 to 1.0. Probably even in 0.5 although this could be more understandable.

its minmatar so its flexible. dual rep stabber with 180s and rapid lights is fun and still really fast. its hilarious in lowsec fac war where you can dictate fights in plexes and kite around while owning stuff B)

We all know; Take what CCP says at Fanfest, as a grain of salt.
Dev’s have a proven track record, of making of presentations/reveals at Fanfest, that Never end up, transitioning through to the game.
Yet the player base lives in hope, year after year, only to be disappointed when things talked about don’t happen.
Please let this year be different.

People seem to forget very quickly.
I expected a comments section full of decrying regarding the carrier/super nerf; because hoardes of anti-cfc threatened to unsub if this was done only a year prior when CFC were proposing balance changes.

“The second graph (below) shows the number of PVP kills for the same time period and the HUGE increase in PVP content which has been happening”

That graph shows a large increase in PVP in the days leading up to Phoebe (due to excited speculation) and then a virtually uninterrupted decline afterwards, occasional spikes notwithstanding. I hate that he misrepresents the data to fit his narrative like that. we can all see what happened.

It look like a large increase to PvP, a drop, then a recovery, then a drop again. That probably means that people came back to try stuff, tried it, decided not enough was done, then came back for each patch to re-explore. Each time they discovered not enough was done and went away. Message…more change is necessary.

I think that he interpreted to fit his narrative, you did the same and then I came along and repeated the whole exercise. Remember the famous words:

the PVE ishtar is build around Wasp II so no damage done there, its till the afktar thats the best choice.

For pvp there will be a new doctrine and knowing Eve its jsut a matter of time before that doctrine gets nerfed and the circle is completed again.

What i dont understand is why bombers dint get nerfed….they are the reason why Battleships doctrines are almost non excistent.
The slow warp and align mechenic is a delicious bombers fleet dream with no escape without sustaining retarded losses.

Ah well we shall see whats on the nerfbat next year when the new OP doctrine makes its way on the field.

well not assigning fighters should solve the skynet problem. why also disable also the ability to warp? means a ratting carrier has to scoop fighters before warping to another ano. supers have to scoop FBS before warping to another structure.
that should not a big issue i know, but the disable warp thingy does not solve the skynet issue its the assign thingy that solves it

It’s ok, they didn’t nerf your ability to put up 100 t2 large bubbles on the gates like they do in the Drone regions. You still have plenty of time to cook and eat food, take a shit, have a nice long candle lit bubble bath before you need to go check on your botting carriers.

So please explain why i need to wait for my slow as fuck fighters/fighter bombers to get to my super/carrier before i can warp off? Do i really need to abandon 250mill worth of oversized drones when someone turns up, you guys do understand that the better part of a region will likely hot drop you if they ever point you for about 20 seconds.

Just why, fighter assign being removed was awesome, but why hit anyone trying to do anything of a hit and run nature with what are prized targets, that get stalked wherever they go.

That change and only that change hits small groups significantly, and just makes it harder to justify using those ships in a riskier and funner manner. There is no need to drive them further into their broken blob role by removing the few other means of using them reasonably.

Sorry for all that text guys, but this just seems like a random shot in the foot of supers in particular “cause reasons”.

I agree, carriers in low sec opperations take a small nerf.
I have no sympathy for ratting carriers and neither does CCP.
Howver, in low sec there is usually some support that provides time to get your fighters back, its usually a gank so I guess the change is neutral.

Just another reason that I just stopped playing EVE. I loved the concept but constant changes, killing long standing abilities and just the overall relaxing fun of doing things and not PVP all the time. Since they started doing these “rapid updates” they really have not added any fun content, just mix things up to make it harder to do anything in game. Thanks CCP for ruining something great.

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